


A Normal Life

by torigates



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 12:25:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torigates/pseuds/torigates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She closed her eyes on Stefan’s horrified face, and the carnage around her, sucking in one last breath. <i>It will be okay</i>, she wanted to tell him. <i>It will be</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Normal Life

  
She closed her eyes on Stefan’s horrified face, and the carnage around her, sucking in one last breath. _It will be okay_ , she wanted to tell him. _It will be_.

 

 

 

++

 

 

 

She exhaled.

From the moment she took her first breath Elena knew she was alive. _I’m alive_ , she thought, gulping in that first mouthful of air. How strange was it that she could think of it as her first breath? She'd been dead and then she wasn't. She inhaled the first gasp of her new life and she knew she was alive. She wondered, briefly, how many people wake up thankful to be alive. She wondered _if_ she was thankful to be alive. She could feel the way her lungs inflated with air the way it whizzed through her nostrils and mouth like she was drinking it in, devouring it down, consuming, gasping, wheezing, her heart pounding in her ears and chest and she was alive, alive, alive.

She was alive.

Distantly she heard another breath and a thump and it wasn't until later that she knew what that sound meant. First and last in tandem like some kind of awful symmetry, but she was alive.

 

 

 

++

 

 

 

She saw Jenna fall.

She saw Jenna fall and she heard her voice scream and she saw Jenna die.

(Later she would remember that Jenna died alone. Alone and afraid for Elena, and that was only one of many ways Elena had let her down—that she hadn’t been there when Jenna needed her most, that she had kept things from her, kept her out of things. But at that moment, Elena wasn’t thinking of that; she was thinking of Jenna, watching as Jenna’s mouth opened in silent horror as the life drained from her eyes and Elena could only watch.)

When Klaus came to her, Elena remembered the look on Jenna's face as Elena pleaded with her to shut it all off. It was that look that drove home Elena's failure: that Jenna could lie there in the face of terror and death and look at her murderer head on as herself with her emotions intact. Jenna was strong and brave and kind and good and Elena had failed her in keeping the truth from her.

In that simple realisation Elena was able to take Klaus on even with Stefan's terrified eyes staring back at her, everything around her going blurry at the edges. She promised herself then that if she woke up she'd make it up to Jenna somehow. If Jenna could be brave in the face of her death and vampirism—Elena could too.

She took in a breath and closed her eyes.

 

 

 

++

 

 

 

Breathing was violent.

Her breaths were ragged and wracking through her body. Her heart pounded and her blood flowed through her veins thick and hot and violently fast.

And alive. Alive.

They stared at her and the question shone in all their eyes. Elena wanted to reach out and touch everything around her. She wanted to take it all in and make sure it was real and solid and sure. She wanted to see everything, feel everything, touch everything.

Outside John was dead.

"I'm alive," she said and it hurt to talk. Her bones cracked and fell back into place, muscles groaned and creaked.

Her blood raced.

 

 

 

++

 

 

 

At the cemetery, Stefan stood next to her and Elena leaned against him. The wind whipped around them and Elena's hair tickled her face and made her sneeze. The air felt fresh in her lungs and Elena gulped down several deep breaths. She remembered Jenna was dead and felt guilty. She held her breath and felt the way it burned in her chest—held it until she couldn’t stand it anymore before letting it out in one long, violent motion.

Beside her, Stefan wasn't breathing.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the steady rise and fall of his chest, his body moving out of pure memory now. In the beginning, it used to scare her, the occasional long pauses between each breath, when his brain forgot to tell his organs to breathe. Several long seconds would pass by, and Elena watched in fascinated horror, her own breath caught in her throat before it would kick start and he'd take a deep breath. Elena wanted to press her ear against his chest in those moments like her will alone could bring back the steady one-two thump-thump of his heart.

She wanted to ask if there was any pleasure in breathing or if it was only habit after all these years. She wanted to ask, what am I now?

Stefan's hand was sure in her own, but he had no pulse.

 

 

 

++

 

 

 

Elena held Caroline’s hand and listened as her friend told her what Matt had decided. Elena could barely remember the girl she was with Matt. She had thought so many things were sure, back then. She could see the straight path of her life unfolding before her with ease, and it had never once scared her. Now, everything is dark and bleak, but Elena can only feel sorry for him; the easy path he chose.

He doesn't know what he's missing out on, she told Caroline and meant it.

Elena thinks about how she used to long for a normal life. How she used to have a normal life.

A normal life.

Her father and uncle were part of a town council designed specifically to keep people safe from vampires. Her best friend was a witch. Her mother killed herself to become a vampire. She was the doppleganger.

This was all true before she met Stefan.

 

 

 

++

 

 

 

Outside the cemetery they stand together. Jenna and John are beside her parents and Elena wants to scream it’s all so unfair. _They don’t even have a tombstone_ , she thinks.

Elena and Stefan side by side, her friends at their back. The day is sunny, warm. Elena takes a deep breath and feels it through her whole body.

She is alive, yes. But for how long?


End file.
